LETTER: I disagree on film incentives

Thursday

Jun 5, 2014 at 12:01 AMJun 5, 2014 at 9:36 AM

Dear Editor and movie fans of Cleveland County,

What was that about "thousands" of jobs in the "ﬁlm industry" The Star mentioned recently? (The Star, May 13, 2014) Oh, yes, all those "high-paying," permanent, professional movie-making jobs that I'm sure lasted for years with really fantastic health and retirement beneﬁts. What? You mean you didn't hear about those? Well, I just can't imagine why not, with The Star writing about the vast amounts of money being paid so generously and all those Shelby people being "discovered" and lured away to fantastic ﬁlm careers in Hollywood. I hear some of them are up for Academy Awards even now.

Why, movies were happening every day around here, that is, until that stingy state legislature starting talking about cutting back on the cash payments that we taxpayers ﬁght so eagerly to transfer to the ﬁlm industry. And of course, everybody knew that almost none of those jobs were held for only short periods by people who came here temporarily from California or other states and then went back home. Of course not. Why, our granddaddies would have called such people "carpetbaggers" anyway. It's a fact those "ﬁlm crews" were composed almost 99% of local people, most of them from up around Casar. I could tell by their accents.

And I just know they wouldn't have sent any of that money out of state to spouses and children on the west coast or in Florida or New York. No sir, they spent it all for lunch right here in Shelby at "Pleasant City" The Star said. Our motels, other restaurants, and the Big Lots parking lot were full every night with movie people doing all that spending.

And just think of all the tax money the government got--because we all know that everybody in the ﬁlm industry is a "1 percenter." And those are the people who ought to be paying all these taxes anyway.

If our state legislators would just lighten up a little, we'd all be better off. Some of these local merchants who seem to struggle every day and work themselves to death to start a small business and keep it going for years without a bit of state help are incredibly glad and even overjoyed to see their proﬁts taxed. It's only a little bit more. That way, the state has more to give away, and we can ﬁnally have some big wage-earners here and high-quality movies, too. After all, it's about "ensuring jobs for our friends and neighbors." The Star said so. For all of them. Just count them all yourself. I dare you.